And Now for Something Completely Different, In Her Majesty’s Name

Rules Cover

I received a parcel today containing In Her Majesty’s Name; Heroes, Villains, and Fiends; and Sleeping Dragon, Rising Sun. Top notch products, stem to stern; kudos to the authors Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton. Osprey Publishing has done a superior job of publishing quality books and their efforts shine in this series of rules and supplements.

I must confess my imagination was given a work out when I initially read the varied discussions, the many blogs, and the myriad reviews. Having the books in hand has only confirmed my anticipation, and my appreciation of high quality writing. I wish I had acquired the rules and the two supplements sooner.

I usually prepare several Companies with differing “themes”. For example I can offer Villainy and Heroes, Egalitarian and Despotic, even Hard-Boiled and Whimsy. Armed with such comprehensive and well-conceived rules as the authors have prepared I am most certainly more able to find a congenial opponent to take the challenge of a good romp around the game table.

Have questions? Give me a shout.

English Civil War Royalist Take the Field

The Original Half-Army with Royalist Colors

Your comments are welcome.

Warlord Games(tm) have very good boxed kits for the English Civil War and for the Thirty Years War.

Building the Kits

Once I made a complete mess of one musketeer the others were quite cooperative with my fumbles and hack performance. I hacked off the first chaps arms, cleaned the wound, and re-applied a new set of arms and “gonne”. Never a finer set of lively lads ever graced a spray-paint booth with courage and determination as they.

Here is a link to Warlord Games ™. http://store.warlordgames.com//collections/pike-shotte.

The Half-Army Concept

In my gaming environment producing half-armies in historical setting has finally caught on. I have been “building” both sides for historical, sci-fi, and fantasy gaming for eleven years. I do the same with “skirmish” gaming gangs, teams, and posses.

Other generals have adopted a similar mien, producing half-armies. This serves multiple purposes. You are most able to guess the first purpose, I shall not mention it then.

The second purpose is we have a fine group and a lot of interest in gaming with a ‘friendly’attitude. So, when other generals bring half-armies now two can play in a limited space.

Three, since I have two half-armies for an invitational game or a ‘one-off’ game I can provide a new player or a fellow gamer to ‘give Pike & Shotte a go’: men in flouncy shirts and rugged warriors all.

Four, combine both half-armies into one army for large engagements with another general.

This army in the picture also includes Wargames Foundry(tm) and Old Glory ™ figures. Both companies produce top quality miniatures for the English Civil War and other eras in history.

I had experienced quite an upset to build a fine large army and place it in a ‘carrier’ and dust it every week. With half-army concept I get more time playing with my figures and enjoying the camaraderie. I suppose ‘small tactics’ well executed often produce good results. If I’m going to dust them anyway I might as well use them too.

Wargames Foundry–“The Foundry” http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/english-civil-war/

Old Glory–http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=202

Meet the Nineteenth Century Coincidentium

Nineteenth Century Meets Coincidentium

You have heard the old adage: “find a need and fill it”, this is how to make a fortune. It’s a theme that will persist on game days with Two Hour Wargames Colonial Adventures and Mission St. Mary.

A Sketch of the New Earth

The earth suffered a natural catastrophe from “the heavens”. Clusters of ‘space rocks’ following in the wake of a ‘mega-comet’ ploughed through three planets, Earth, Mars, and Venus. The Apocalypse arrived in 1859. Odd beings landed in worn out ships that had also been dragged through the galaxy by the comet. They founded new colonies on the shattered land.

No one was able to do much in the way of resisting the new settlers. Some Humans blamed the ‘new settlers’ or immigrants for ‘blowing up the sky’and draining oceans. Most of the immigrants do well to scratch out an existence on Earth. They have about the same needs as others. Some show bad manners and get into trouble, most seem to abide by law and respect the other beings now living in communes and out in the territories.

The Bureau of Particulars

The group picture is a brick of agents from the Bureau of Particulars. These agents are the field investigators and law keepers for human society in the late 19th century Maritime Union.

The Coincidentium

The new ‘reality’ has been dubbed the Coincidentium by New York Herald editor Marcus Frimby. “We will find we have a very real confrontation with beings much different from ourselves or anyone the great explorers of old ever encountered. To date the Maritime Union and Territories are populated by Hybrids, Mutants, Neugens, Mortans, Spirits, and Humans, and the persistently combative migratory Narga all making attempt to live on the what part of the planet that has remained stable for the last 25 years.” The Coincidentium reflects the razors-edge survival of all species on Earth.

“The most frightening and deadly beings are not always the most repugnant to the senses.” Lady Morgana Davis, Spirits, Charleston, Lower Carolina.

Paints for Minis

I just put up my paints and cleaned the brushes and the studio area.

It’s a pleasure to work with great paint. What is a great paint? A great paint has several key characteristics: ample coverage, color retention, leveling, and easily thinned. Well, those are my points of consideration. In other words, great paint ‘works for me’.

Ample coverage means I do not have to ‘force’ the paint but I guide the paint. Color retention for me means when I thin the paint with air-brush thinner or my favorite secret-mix I do not lose the color in the thinning. Leveling means my naughty brush strokes are minimized or eliminated. Easily thinned has be partially addressed; no one wants their paint to blotch when thinned, even to a milk like consistency. The paint should hold up to common-sense thinning. These descriptions are meant to be descriptive.

On the first batch of Parliament Infantry by Warlord Games. I am using Vallejo Model Color and Game Color I purchased a few months ago. The Vallejo paint is comparable to Golden acrylics and Liquitex soft body paints. Thin appropriately and its all good.

I have maintained a collection of Golden Acrylic paints for three or more years adding replacements for my favorite shades and tones. I like that the older paints keep so well.

I started painting with Liquitex products and moved to their soft body acrylics. The wide range of colors and easy access make them part of my “reliable” mediums.

For acrylic inks I enjoy Daler-Rowney FW acrylic water resistant inks.

Great paint is what works for me and I am sure it is the same with other people. Paint does not have to have a pedigree or a high price or a fancy package. Great paint simply must work for me, or if it does not, then I have no use for it.

English Civil War Parliament Infantry

Warlord Games(TM) produces some very finely detailed soft plastic (styrene) miniatures for several historical armies. I recently purchased a box of 40 English Civil War (ECW) miniatures to bolster the Royalist (Cavaliers) and the Roundheads (Parliament) I already own.

Patience is a virtue, yet I do not feel virtuous. Modeling the Musketeers weapons to correspond to the molded bodies was a chore until I learned the tricks to make them go together easier.

There was a brief moment I wondered how the entire box might sound in the trash compactor.

They are all ‘built’ and cleaned. Ready for the primer stage.

Painting Horse Miniatures

Every opportunity for improvement is found in each horse.

Apply that idea to any miniature I paint, horse, pirate, or trooper and I have a winning attitude even if my aptitude suffers.

This is an essay on process painting 25mm metal or plastic horse figures for table top gaming purposes. The particular game will be a set of rules published by Studio Tomahawk, SAGA. The subjects of this essay are Saracen mounts for the Crescent and Cross expansion game.

Find Studio Tomahawk here: http://www.studio-tomahawk.com/. Choose français-anglais or some of both.

First Paint Step
After the horses are cleaned and air dried they go for a bit of primer. This group was spray primed with matte black and allowed to dry for about 24 hours.

Second Paint Step
To turn up the flow of the painting process I dry brushed a medium gray acrylic over the black primer if I anticipate a brown horse. I go to the burnt umber and again dry brush with a round #5. I stay loose with the brush held, for me, overly long from the ferrule closer to the brush end.

I am beginning to see the value in using larger brushes on miniatures at the base coat phase.

For a ‘gray horse’ I go again with a medium gray over the black primer. Then a wetted course of lighter layers of dun gray (low yellow 1% to 5% tan and the previous gray tone).

For a ‘chestnut horse’ I use a medium bright red over the black primer. The wetted course of lighter layers follow and are allowed to dry.

When I anticipate a ‘bay horse’ I experimented with a Payne’s gray dry brushing over the primer.

My plan for a ‘black horse’ included a shot of darkest blue (Payne’s gray mixed with phthalo blue red shade)dry brushed with a 1/4″ shader, of course, minding to leave some shadows.

The under painted miniatures dried for about an hour. This will vary depending on the local humidity and air temperature.

Third Paint Step
I followed the under painting with a acrylic medium wetted coat and avoided the nice shadows created earlier. This added a bit of emphasis on the higher regions of the horse, at least temporarily. In any event the shadows remained.

This is a trial run so I expect some errors. These so-called ‘mistakes’ will be noted and shot at sunrise, or at least banished temporarily to the re-paint shelf. Yes, I have an entire shelf dedicated to my lovely errors. The ‘no-vacancy’ sign is rarely lit.

I feel if I keep at this hobby, painting miniatures, I may one day get remarkable better at it. Being Good will probably have to be reserved for the Angels.

Remains of the Day Northwest Frontier

Taking fire in the morning

A Squad In Process.

I am in the process of painting a squad of British infantry on the Northwest Frontier circa 1897. As I slapped paint I placed the minis to one side. It made an arrangement on my painting bench, quite unconsciously. So I took what I saw and wrote my impression below. It is miserably lacking in detail and truth and perhaps unjustified, mere fancy but there it was nonetheless, words of bitterness and irony and very little glory.

Night Picket

Neither elegies nor apologies
Old Sweats know the score.
It’s us or them, Sergeant growls,
Be them then, the soldiers swear.
Nightly silent scorpion stings
Dagger men come a-calling;
Lean blades mock life deliver
Everlasting farewell kiss.
Wherever the Union Jack still
Flies ’tis due to men like these,
But more to bairns and mams
Asleep in Blighty’s arms.
(all rights reserved,2015)

The remains of the day